Earl Cooke, Sisters of Africa, acrylic on canvas, 1986

Saturday, October 13, 2018

9:00am-11:00am (registration 8:30)
Eastlake Park
1549 E. Jefferson St.
Phoenix, AZ 85034
FREE

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Join Indigo Cultural Center and MoW as we walk the Historical Jefferson Street Corridor – from 16th Street to 7th Street in downtown Phoenix. Known as the ‘Black Corridor,’ this 1-mile stretch was and still is considered the heartbeat or epicenter of African American cultural life. As we walk this historical and cultural trail, we will acknowledge and pay homage to the educational, religious, political, social and cultural sites of key structures, buildings and places that paralleled key moments in the history of black Phoenicians and that comprises part of the national tapestry of civil rights history.

We will begin our 30-minute walk at Eastlake Park – the oldest park in the city, and the social cornerstone for African American life in Phoenix. We will end our trek at Tanner Chapel AME Church — the first African American church in Phoenix and the site where Martin Luther King Jr. came to speak in 1964.

This walk is organized by Museum of Walking in collaboration with Indigo Cultural Center. We are honoring artist Earl Cooke, who has been an active member of this neighborhood and a contributor to the arts in Phoenix for several decades.

“If there were to be a ray of light through a sky of racial storms, peace and calm amidst the chaos and disorder of segregation and suppression, Eastlake Park would be this light, this peace and calm.”

~John Cano, South Mountain High School, 12th Grade, 1997

Photograph of artist Earl Cooke